Coastal Protection Forest Construction Project

China’s coastal line starts at the Yalu River in Liaoning in the north and ends at the Beilun River mouth in Guangxi. It is 18,000 kilometres long and crosses 11 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. In 1988, the Chinese government outlined the Coastal Protection Forest System Construction Project and defined the coastal line of 11 provinces as the main construction line. The project aims at developing a

Countermeasures for Solving the Environmental Problems and Accelerating the Model City Construction of Xi'an

Through careful study, it found that the key and difficult points of affecting and restricting Xi＇an to reach the model city construction standards in provincial and national levels were ＂urban air environment quality standards＂ and ＂water qualification rate of urban water environment function area＂. In order to tackle with the weak links, highlight the important points and focus on the difficult points to strengthen scientific and technological innovation, we actively explored new ideas and ways to resolve the dilemma in meeting the two standards of model city construction, and we managed to put forward the countermeasures to resolve the dilemma through innovating system and mechanism. ＂Place master system＂ should be carded out quickly to meet the ＂urban air environment quality standards＂, while ＂river master system＂ should be implemented as soon as possible to reach the ＂water qualification rate of urban water environment function area＂. The aim of this study was to enhance the qualification rates of the indicators for model city construction to make Xi＇an successfully pass the provincial and national assessment of model city construction through dealing with the weak links to accelerate the realization of becoming model environmental protection city.

Dam foundation excavation techniques in China:A review

A protective layer(PL) is commonly reserved above foundation surface to protect the underlying rock mass during dam foundation excavation. In China, the PL of dam foundation is conventionally subdivided into two or three thin layers and excavated with the shallow-hole blasting method, even by pneumatic pick method in case of soft rock mass. The aforementioned layered excavation of the PL delays the construction of the whole project. After nearly 30-year practices, several safe and effcient methods for the PL excavation of dam foundation are gradually developed. They include shallow-hole bench blasting with cushion material(SBC) at the bottom of the hole, and horizontal smooth blasting(HSB). The PL is even cancelled on the condition that horizontal pre-split technique is employed during dam foundation excavation. This paper introduces the aforementioned two PL excavation methods(shallow-hole blasting and bench blasting) and horizontal pre-split technique of dam foundation without protective layer(HPP). The basic principles of blasting method, blasting geometry, charge structure, drill-and-blast parameters of typical projects are examined. Meanwhile, the merits and limitations of each method are compared. Engineering practices in China show that HSB is basically the optimal method for dam foundation PL excavation in terms of foundation damage control and rapid construction. Some new problems for dam foundation PL excavation arising, such as strong unloading and relaxation phenomenon that encountered in the gorge region of southwest China, are needed to be addressed; and the corresponding countermeasures are discussed as well.

Marine Environment around Taiwan Coast

Coastal erosion is an island-wide problem in Taiwan; about 80% of the island＇s sandy coastline had suffered from erosion over the past few decades. Historically, with the specific tectonic environment and rapid uplifting rate, lots of sediment had been yielded and transported to the coastal area that resulted in an advancing shoreline. Taiwan economically moved from a developing country to a developed one; a lot of human intervention had been made along the island coast. These are the major factors on recent coastal erosion. Even actions such as building of stabilization structures may inadvertently increase erosion. Some intervention examples are chosen to address how human-induced change made the profound impact on coastal erosion in Taiwan. All the information serves to provide a better understanding of the coastal processes, and a better response to the erosion problem.